Much of contemporary supermarket marketing materials are concerned with attracting a consumer's attention in novel and exciting ways. Containers, whether for dry goods, or refrigerated or frozen goods, are very colorful and often highlight a producer's or packager's tradename or mark, in highly visually intensive forms. Indeed, much, if not most, of the merchandising effort is made with a view towards keeping a tradename or trademark uppermost in the consumer's consciousness.
Marks are often graphical in nature and lend themselves to visual display. However, frozen or refrigerated products are contained within controlled environments where the goods are kept behind doors that, although made of glass, are nevertheless closed. There is little opportunity for tradename display apart from that placed on the product packages themselves.
Conventionally, marks, logos or other related graphical images are placed on or in the vicinity of freezer or refrigerator doors by way of surface adhering appliqués. Trademarks or tradenames might be applied to a film substrate as a printed layer, in contrasting colors, or provided as a paper or plastic card, poster, or the like, with the logo prominently printed thereon. Contemporary graphical displays are little more than posters in that they are generally opaque, either completely, or in those areas that contain the logo or graphic.
Further, conventional displays are adhered to the surface with adhesives that are very difficult to clean off when it becomes desirable to change the merchandising display. The glues often cause discoloration and may mar the glass surface of the door. Opaque materials are also quite disadvantageous, in that they prevent consumers from seeing the entire contents of the freezer or refrigerator, while only a single vendor or product is highlighted. Vendors unwilling or unable to supply a market with their own appliqué graphics would nevertheless be very upset if their products were hidden from view by a competitive banner.
Accordingly, there is a need for some method of implementing a graphical image or design on a glass freezer or refrigerator door in such a way as to maintain the integrity and clarity of the glass. The image presentation should be made so that the image does not interfere with complete vision through the door, but is also clearly and unambiguously visible.
These contradictory requirements have heretofore been unobtainable. Visual images have been either visible, in which case they interfere with complete vision through the door, or the converse, in which case they are invisible and serve no purpose. The present invention implements these contradictory requirements in an image presentation system and method that accommodates both complete vision through, for example, a glass, plastic, or other transparent or translucent material, freezer or refrigerator door, and a clear and unambiguously visible image.